Note: This review was originally published in November 2016, but the “Overview” tab has been updated in November 2017 to reflect that fact that Mercy For Animals is no longer an ACE Top Charity.

What does Mercy For Animals do?

Mercy For Animals (MFA) engages in a variety of farmed animal advocacy programs, often involving filming or promoting footage from their undercover investigations of factory farms. They promote investigation footage primarily through the media and online campaigns. MFA also engages in legal work and corporate campaigns on behalf of animals, and they conduct grassroots outreach designed to change individuals’ attitudes and behavior towards farmed animals.

What are their strengths?

MFA has a long record of success in carrying out undercover investigations and following through on the additional avenues for influence they provide. While undercover investigations can be risky and logistically complicated to carry out, they often receive significant media coverage and thus can influence a very large number of people. Additionally, they offer avenues for corporate outreach and legal advocacy and provide photos and videos that can be used in other forms of outreach. We believe that MFA has the ability to use additional funds to conduct more investigations, although not in the U.S.

MFA’s approach to consumer outreach has a relatively high expected effectiveness compared to other work in that area, especially considering their shift in focus from local outreach to online campaigns a few years ago. We believe this shift was motivated by a solid understanding of the areas in which MFA was best placed to have success, in light of the experience MFA’s team has in this area.

What are their weaknesses?

We believe that undercover investigations have helped to draw media attention to animal cruelty in the U.S., but we are less confident about the value of conducting undercover investigations in other countries, like China. However, conducting more investigations inside the U.S. may have diminishing returns. MFA has noticed that North American media seems saturated with investigation footage, and they do not plan to expand the number of investigations they conduct in the U.S. We support MFA’s decision, but we note to potential donors that further funds directed to MFA may not be used to expand what we see as one of their most valuable programs.

We previously thought of MFA’s large online ads program as a weakness, but recently learned that it is fully funded by donors who specifically want to support online ads and MFA is not using general funds for it in 2016 or 2017, indicating that additional non-earmarked donations to MFA will not be spent on this program.

Why didn’t Mercy For Animals receive our top recommendation?

MFA declined to be reviewed or to publish their review in 2017, so our review is not current enough to support our previous recommendation of MFA as a Top Charity.

Mercy For Animals was one of our Top Charities from May 2014 to November 2017.

Note: This review was originally published in November 2016, but the “Overview” tab has been updated in November 2017 to reflect that fact that Mercy For Animals is no longer an ACE Top Charity.

How Mercy For Animals Performs on Our Criteria

Criterion #1: The Charity Has Concrete Room for More Funding and Plans for Growth

In 2015, we said that Mercy For Animals could use up to $1 million in increased funding this year, mostly to expand internationally, but possibly in ways that we did not foresee (similar to the launch of The Good Food Institute in late 2015).1 MFA has budgeted to spend about $3 million more in 2016 than they had budgeted for 2015, which should mean a substantial expansion in their programs.2 Most notably, MFA has considerably expanded their corporate outreach and education programs.3 Both of these expansions have included increases in the amount of work that MFA is doing outside the United States, as we expected.4

MFA’s plans for further expansion center mainly on the interlocking goals of growing internationally and expanding their corporate outreach work to cover more areas of animal welfare, specifically conditions for broiler chickens and fish.5, 6 Much of the growth in MFA’s corporate outreach programs this year has been funded by grants from the Open Philanthropy Project; we expect those grants to fund at least as much work next year, and more in the case of the international corporate outreach work, for which MFA will still be hiring new staff in late 2016 and early 2017.7, 8 However, MFA also has plans to do other international work, such as institutional meat reduction work that follows the model that the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has used in the U.S.9 We expect MFA to need to raise additional funds—or reallocate existing funds—to cover this work, as well as any further expansion of education and investigation programs. Even without expansion plans, they would likely need more funding in order to comply with the new Fair Labor Standards Act, since it raises the salary threshold below which U.S. employees must be paid for working overtime.10

Overall, we think that MFA could likely use at least $1 million to $2 million more in funding next year than they had this year. We don’t think that the Open Philanthropy Project grants have filled enough of their room for funding to make support from smaller donors unnecessary. However, we do think that they have expanded quickly enough in the past year to stretch their capacity, and might benefit from a somewhat slower pace of expansion in the next year in order to ensure that they are able to hire as many staff as they need and to monitor their many new programs closely enough to make any needed changes. Since we can’t predict exactly how any organization will respond upon receiving more funds than they have planned for, this estimate is speculative, not definitive. We could imagine a charity running out of room for funding more quickly than we expect, or coming up with good ways to use funding beyond what we have suggested. Our estimates are indicators of the point at which we would want to check in with a charity to ensure that they have used the funds they’ve received and are still able to absorb additional funding.

Criterion #2: A Back-of-the-Envelope Calculation Finds the Charity is Cost-Effective

Mercy For Animals runs several programs; we estimate cost-effectiveness separately for each program, then combine our estimates to give a composite estimate of their overall impact. Note that all estimates factor in associated supporting costs including administrative and fundraising costs. Where we give estimates as ranges, they represent our 90% subjective confidence intervals; that is, we expect the true value to be within the range given in 90% of cases.11 We think this quantitative perspective is a useful component of our overall evaluation, but the estimates of equivalent animals spared per dollar should not be taken as our overall opinion of the charity’s effectiveness, especially given that we choose not to account for some less easily quantified forms of impact in this section, leaving them for our qualitative evaluation.

Education

We estimate that in 2016 MFA will spend 39% of their budget, or around $2,808,000, on in-person and online educational outreach.12 The in-person outreach will include the distribution of between 1.6 million and 2.6 million pieces of literature and between 6,000 and 10,000 pay-per-view video views.13, 14 The online outreach will result in between 8 million and 12 million clicks on their online ads, with between 1 million and 1.7 million viewers choosing to pledge to go vegetarian and receive additional online support from MFA, including a digital Vegetarian Starter Guide and a follow-up email series.15, 16

Undercover Investigations

We estimate that in 2016 MFA will spend 25% of their budget, or around $1,832,000, on undercover investigations.17 This will result in about 5 to 7 undercover investigations in the U.S. and Canada, and up to 3 more which will be released in other countries.18, 19 We estimate that media coverage of these investigations will receive between 200 million and 5 billion views, including all views when someone sees coverage of one or more investigations from multiple sources.20, 21, 22 This is an estimated cost of between $200,000 and $300,000 per investigation, but only $0.30 to $3.50 per 1000 views.23

Corporate Outreach

We estimate that in 2016 MFA will spend about 15% of their budget, or $1,101,000, on corporate outreach.24 This results in some companies adopting new policies, and these policies result in reduced suffering for animals.25 We estimate that MFA’s corporate outreach will help cause between 60 and 90 policy changes affecting between 200 million and 800 million laying hens and broiler chickens, accounting for the risk that some companies might not follow through with their commitments.26, 27 The policies include moving laying hens to cage-free systems, and welfare improvements for broiler chickens that affect slaughter conditions, access to sunlight and perches, and possibly the use of chickens less prone to health problems.28, 29

Legal Advocacy

We estimate that in 2016 MFA will spend about 13% of their budget, or $975,000, on legal advocacy.30 In 2016, this work has included filing 21 animal cruelty charges relating to investigations and assisting other organizations to defeat two anti-animal bills and pass one proposition promoting farmed animal welfare.31 We think MFA’s role in the legislative efforts was fairly small, and that their legal work mostly served to help make possible the benefits of MFA’s work on investigations, and its benefits are captured by those outcomes.

Communications and Social Media

We estimate that in 2016 MFA will spend about 8% of their budget, or $552,000, on social media outreach and other communications, including their blog, Facebook page, etc.32 We estimate that this year the videos they share will get between 6.3 million and 8 million unique views to 95% of the video length.33 This gives us a cost of between $0.07 and $0.09 per video view to 95%.34 However, we note that users also engaged with MFA’s content in many other ways, such as watching parts of videos, reading text posts, and reading blog posts, so the cost per engagement is lower.

Changes Since 2015

In both 2015 and 2016, MFA reported to us the number of media views of investigations as estimated by a media reporting service. The 2016 number is several times lower than the 2015 number, despite that the projected number of investigations is identical, possibly due to changes in the reporting service’s methodology.35 We did not use the 2015 number in our cost-effectiveness figures, due to both concerns about it being heavily inflated and concern that it was too speculative of an impact to quantify.36 The 2016 number—reported to us at 9.7 billion—still seems high, both to us and to MFA.37 MFA told us this year that they have spoken to multiple media reporting services about their concerns with the numbers reported, and learned that while the reporting services acknowledge problems with their numbers—chiefly that some reported views are of the newspaper or show a story appears in, and not of the story itself—more accurate but still comprehensive reports are not available.38 Despite these problems, we have found the reported number this year useful in forming our estimates of the number of times content has actually been viewed.

MFA’s corporate outreach program has grown considerably since 2015 in both budget and the number of animals affected, and the number of animals affected has grown more than the budget of the program, making the program more efficient overall.39, 40 We think the progress in corporate campaigning is in part because the commitments they and others sparked last year caused a shift in the industry attitude towards battery cages that allowed other companies to adopt cage-free policies more easily; in particular, this year MFA and other groups were very successful in attempts to change grocery retailers’ policies.41 We think this speaks to the difficulty in making cost-effectiveness estimates for long-term campaigns, since they can have diffuse effects years later, including effects they could have on new policies and commitments that aren’t directly attributable to the organization who ran the long-term campaign. We’re not sure whether these gains can continue, as the types of policy on which MFA has been working are now widespread throughout the U.S. industry, and they will need to start a move towards some other policy to improve farmed animal welfare in order to continue reaching large numbers of animals through these techniques.42 As of November 2016, however, MFA and other charities have begun making progress in both international cage-free reforms and other areas of welfare policy like reducing the suffering of chickens raised for meat.

All Activities Combined

To combine these estimates into one overall cost-effectiveness estimate, we need to translate them into comparable units. This will introduce several sources for errors and imprecision, so the resulting estimate should not be taken literally.43 However, it will provide information about whether MFA’s efforts are comparable in efficiency to other charities’.44

We use our impact calculator for leafleting and online ads to find that MFA spares between 0 and 5 animals from life on a farm per dollar spent on education.45, 46 We also use that calculator and an adjustment for the difference in depth and content of views of investigations through the media to estimate that MFA spares between 0 and 100 animals per dollar spent on investigations.47 We use a separate impact calculator for social media to find that MFA spares between 0 and 30 animals per dollar spent on social media programs (other than online ads).48

We consider the number of animals affected by MFA’s corporate policy victories, the extent to which MFA worked with other groups to achieve those victories, and the proportion of suffering alleviated by the policy changes to estimate that MFA spares an equivalent of between -100 and 500 animals per dollar spent on corporate outreach.49, 50

We exclude legal advocacy results from our final cost-effectiveness estimates and don’t attempt to convert them into an equivalent animals spared figure; it is too difficult to disentangle MFA’s effects from the total effects not already captured by our other estimates.

We weight our estimates by the proportion of funding MFA spends on each activity to estimate that in the short-term, MFA spares between -10 and 80 animals per dollar spent.51, 52 We have also run parallel calculations to estimate that this means MFA spares animals between -4 and 20 years of suffering on farms per dollar spent.53, 54 Because of extreme uncertainty even about the strongest parts of our calculations, there is currently limited value in further elaborating these estimates. Instead, we give weight to our other criteria. We also exclude more indirect or long-term impacts from this estimate, which could result in it being an underestimate of overall impact. Because charities have varying proportions of different types of impact, this makes our quantitative estimates particularly difficult to use to compare charities.

Criterion #3: The Charity is Working on Things That Seem to Have High Mission Effectiveness

Undercover Investigations

MFA works to expose the suffering of animals in factory farms through undercover investigations. These investigations are then made public, and MFA makes an effort to get them as much exposure as possible.55 MFA’s investigations sometimes result in criminal charges against workers who abuse animals.56

We believe that there is great value in these efforts. MFA reports that their investigations have generated 3,067 media stories in the past eight months alone.57 There is weak evidence of a negative correlation between media coverage of animal welfare and meat consumption. Since social media now provides a platform for free widespread sharing of the footage, a large number of individuals can be exposed to MFA’s work.58 Investigation footage also provides material for leaflets and videos, which can also be promoted publicly. Lastly, investigations provide information about factory farms that can be leveraged to achieve legal and corporate reform.

Online and Grassroots Outreach

MFA engages in leafleting and online outreach. Inspiring individual consumers to make animal-friendly changes affects animals by reducing the demand for animal products. Increasing the number of vegans and vegetarians could also lead to greater support for new animal-friendly policies, such as the institutional adoption of plant-based products. We think that outreach targeted to individual consumers might even be a necessary precursor to more institutional change.

Still, the impact of grassroots outreach seems limited relative to the impact of other interventions. Even if viewers and readers make individual changes, they might not influence many others to do the same. By comparison, a change in corporate policy or the law can influence many people’s behavior and might have a greater indirect impact on social norms and the growth of the animal protection movement. It’s important to note here that MFA is not using general funds for online ads in 2016 or 2017, indicating that additional non-earmarked donations to MFA will not be spent on this program.

Corporate Outreach

Corporate outreach seems to have high mission effectiveness because it involves convincing a few powerful people to make decisions that influence the lives of millions of animals.59 This seems likely to be easier than reaching and persuading millions of consumers in order to accomplish the same goal. However, the gains achieved through corporate outreach are often small welfare improvements. It’s not clear whether such improvements, even if easy to achieve, are highly effective in the long term. Small welfare reforms may improve conditions for animals, but they may also influence public opinion, either towards greater concern for farmed animals or towards complacency with regard to industrial agriculture. We expect the impact on public opinion to be favorable for animals, overall.60

Legal Advocacy

While it is important to create a public demand for change by conducting undercover investigations and grassroots outreach, it is also necessary to pair those efforts with attempts to discuss reform measures with legislative bodies in order to create lasting improvements in laws regarding animals. Reaching out to local governments can be a necessary step in creating new and/or improved animal welfare laws.

Criterion #4: The Charity Possesses a Robust and Agile Understanding of Success and Failure

MFA appears to have a strong understanding of success and failure. They also seem willing to significantly modify their programs or redistribute resources among their programs in order to increase efficiency. MFA even uses research to guide small design decisions. For instance, many of their online materials undergo split-testing to ensure that they are as effective as possible.61 One of their successes in this area was the testing and adoption of online ads that emphasized the Vegetarian Starter Guide.

A notable example of MFA’s efforts to increase efficiency is that, in late 2012, they began to shift away from local grassroots outreach and began doing more online outreach, where they found they could be more effective.62 They significantly restructured their organization and have been gradually moving resources away from grassroots organizing and local projects (e.g. tabling at festivals, advertising on billboards) and towards online outreach and more effective local projects (e.g. leafleting).63

In the past year, MFA has continued their efforts to improve efficiency. For example, they conducted a study on the effects of online ads featuring animal cruelty and decided to cut back on their cruelty-focused online ads program based on the results; the study found a statistically insignificant negative result, meaning the group shown the ads reported higher consumption of animal products than the control group.64 They’ve now shifted some of the ads budget from promoting content describing cruelty on factory farms to content encouraging veg eating in a more positive way.65 It is difficult for MFA to shift these resources away from online ads, because the program is fully funded by donors who specifically want to support it and do not seem interested in providing the same amount of funding as more general support for MFA. Rather than further expand the ads program, MFA has been expanding their viral video work to increase video views.66 MFA has also realized that printing Vegetarian Starter Guides is not optimally cost-effective, so they have decided to either include advertisements in the guides, to cover printing costs, or transition to online guides only.67 Finally, MFA has recently decided to end its demonstration tours against Tyson Foods and Gordon Food Service. They haven’t been successful, so MFA decided to try a different kind of campaign.68

MFA does not work solely to increase efficiency within their own organization; they also work to increase efficiency within the entire animal protection movement in at least two ways. First, they try to identify and fill “white spaces,” or needs, within the movement. When they saw the need for an organization that focuses on creating and promoting animal alternatives, they developed the idea for The Good Food Institute and assisted in its creation.69 Second, they try not to duplicate other groups’ efforts. For instance, they realized that, since HSUS successfully promotes institutional meat reduction in the United States, MFA would do better to focus their institutional meat reduction campaigns in other countries.70

Criterion #5: The Charity Possesses a Strong Track Record of Success

Have programs been well executed?

MFA has a long track record of success in their flagship program, carrying out and publicizing undercover investigations. They’ve been conducting undercover investigations for almost 15 years; the earliest investigation on their website is from the Weaver Brothers Egg Farm in 2002. MFA’s investigations have had many positive results, including significant publicity,71 changes in corporate policies,72 and animal cruelty convictions.73

Over the past few years, MFA has developed strong online outreach programs in the U.S. and internationally.74 They report that, in the first eight months of 2016, their pro-veg web pages have been viewed approximately 29.8 million times and their social media content has been shared approximately 3.8 million times.75 They’ve distributed Vegetarian Starter Guides both digitally and in print, and have convinced almost 1 million individuals to pledge to go vegetarian.76

In addition to individual outreach, MFA has successfully conducted corporate outreach. In the first eight months of 2016 they’ve achieved, on their own or in conjunction with other groups, approximately 58 corporate policy changes.77 They’ve helped convince corporations to stop producing or using eggs from caged hens and to prohibit the slaughtering of broiler chickens while conscious.78

MFA’s track record in legal work is not as extensive as the records of their other programs. In 2008, they assisted HSUS in a successful campaign for Proposition 2 in California. In the first eight months of 2016, they filed twenty-one animal cruelty charges which resulted in four convictions, and they helped to defeat two ag-gag bills. Finally, they worked to support the Question 3 initiative in Massachusetts in 2016 to help end the most intense forms of farmed animal confinement.79

Have programs led to change for animals?

Undercover investigations have a history of inspiring stronger animal protection legislation80 and better corporate policies,81 both of which relieve some suffering for farmed animals. There is weak evidence that the media attention generated by investigations may be correlated with a reduction in the demand for meat. It is difficult to establish how an intervention affects animals in both the short and long term, but we think that MFA’s investigations have an extremely strong record.82

Outreach targeted to individuals, both locally and online, has less strongly documented effects on animals. However, there is some evidence that providing individuals with information about industrial agriculture and about going vegetarian or vegan does cause some changes in diet, whether the information is presented in a video or a leaflet.83

MFA’s corporate outreach seems to have affected a large number of animals, particularly in the past year. They estimate that, in the first eight months of 2016, their corporate policy victories have spared approximately 90 million hens from battery cages and 670 million broiler hens from from being slaughtered while conscious.84 Some of their corporate policy victories were achieved in concert with other organizations, but MFA achieved many on their own.

We do not consider MFA’s legal work to have a very strong track record, especially their legal work that is not directly related to their investigations. This is because many of the legal victories they’ve achieved, like Proposition 2, were achieved in concert with other organizations that we expect had significantly more sway, like the Humane Society of the United States.85

Criterion #6: The Charity Has Strong Leadership and Long-Term Strategy

Leadership

MFA has several directors who have been with the organization for multiple years, including the president, who is also the organization’s founder. Directors have frequent contact with one another, so that the organization is able to act as a whole.86 The organization went through a restructuring a few years ago.87 The fact that many leaders have remained with the organization through that transition is encouraging.88 Nick Cooney, Executive Vice President at MFA, has popularized a focus on effectiveness within the animal advocacy movement over the past several books, such as with his book Change of Heart. While we don’t necessarily agree with all of Cooney’s conclusions, we think his work has helped many animal advocates become more effective.

MFA has a small board of Nathan Runkle, founder and President of the charity; Matt Rice, Executive Vice President; and Derek Coons, a long-time MFA board member and volunteer.89 They intentionally keep the board small to avoid bureaucracy and ensure they maintain their commitment to impact.90 While we are often concerned by small boards, especially with overlap with executive staff, leading to a lack of viewpoint diversity and agility, MFA’s track record of impact-driven decision-making reduces this concern in their case.

Long-Term Strategy

MFA is “dedicated to preventing cruelty to farmed animals and promoting compassionate food choices and policies.”91 We support MFA’s choice to focus on improving farmed animal welfare and promoting plant-based diets because we consider farmed animal protection to be the most promising area for doing the most good for animals, other things being equal.92 We think MFA’s decision to “relieve the greatest amount of animal suffering per dollar spent” is especially promising, and they seem committed to this strategy in practice, such as by limiting the number of U.S. investigations done each year based on diminishing media attention given to additional investigations.93 Their research and evaluation work, including the randomized controlled trial of online ads in early 2016, is also indicative of a strong organizational commitment to effectiveness.

MFA makes three-year “vision” documents for each department, although their plans change rapidly and these documents quickly become outdated. For example, the substantial funding from the Open Philanthropy Project has allowed them to do much more than they expected.94

MFA has played a key role in the farmed animal movement, especially through their investigations, which seem to have sparked much of the public discussion and awareness of farmed animal cruelty over the past decade. They create materials, such as investigation footage, that other charities can use. They also work with other charities to help them increase their effectiveness and start new programs, such as running online ads. Finally, we are very excited about their incubator approach with the creation of The Good Food Institute and potentially other charities in the future that tackle neglected issues in the animal movement.

Criterion #7: The Charity Has a Healthy Culture and Sustainable Structure

MFA staff and leadership seem overall very happy with their work. Working on undercover investigations in particular can be stressful, but MFA seems to maintain high staff morale. MFA has an employee handbook for new staff, but specific training is given based on department and position.95 MFA has a relatively high amount of communication between staff and directors, which helps with onboarding and overall efficiency. MFA has also shown sustained fundraising ability over the years with consistent and rapid growth. Given MFA’s multiple strong leaders, consistency, and dedication to self-evaluation, we think they are especially likely to survive leadership changes or other organizational transitions.

MFA has cooperated fully with our evaluation process. They cooperate often with other advocacy charities, and work to create numerous materials that other groups can use.96 In particular, they are transparent with their effectiveness research work, which allows other charities to benefit from their findings.97

Criticism/FAQ

Why does a significant portion of MFA’s outreach focus on dietary change, e.g. reducing meat consumption, rather than directly shifting public attitudes?

Critics argue that a strong focus on dietary change isn’t supported by historical examples or other empirical evidence.98, 99, 100 Some could argue that successful social movements have focused their rhetoric on the institution they opposed rather than on individual behavior supporting that institution. Critics also believe it is difficult to build a mass movement when the perceived criteria for acceptance in the movement is a lifestyle change, and that a consumer focus provokes less moral outrage than focusing on the institution, thus missing an important driver of activism and subsequent social change.

MFA feels that attitudinal change and behavioral change are equally important, and they work to achieve both. When MFA encourages consumers to change their diets, they also educate them about farmed animal welfare. MFA feels that working to achieve behavioral change in some of their programs, such as leafleting, will more directly spare animals than other approaches. If people simply change their attitudes with respect to farmed animals, that might not lead to actual impact for animals. After all, many people currently care about animals, but relatively few are vegetarian or vegan.101 It might actually be easier to change individuals’ attitudes after convincing them to change their diets, since they will no longer need to reconcile their compassion towards farmed animals with eating them.

In general, however, MFA’s approach seems more focused on incremental change than on building a mass movement, which may be the real underlying difference between the two sides.

Does MFA worry that focusing on some of the most extreme confinement practices could lead to complacency with other forms of suffering farmed animals endure or with meat consumption?

Critics argue that humane reforms (e.g. bans on battery cages) might lead people to think that farmed animals no longer suffer and that helping them is no longer a priority.102 Some cite as evidence that the animal agriculture industry markets itself as humane and ethical, which suggests this messaging actually benefits those companies.103 However, this may only reflect gains to individual companies from positioning themselves as the most humane option.104 There isn’t much evidence that this kind of marketing helps the industry as a whole, and there’s weak evidence of a negative correlation between media coverage of animal welfare and meat consumption.

Since humane reforms often involve working directly with food industry companies, this can give the public the impression that these companies treat their animals well when this is not the case, especially when animal advocates are incentivized to make the humane reforms seem like drastic improvements when animals still suffer substantially.105 Critics would also argue that, empirically, humane reforms such as banning battery cages reduce only a very small portion of the harm of animal agriculture, if any, so they are not the most cost-effective use of time.106, 107, 108

MFA has not seen evidence of increased complacency among corporations as a result of their achievements thus far, as companies have often been more willing to work with them after making progress on some issues. It’s not clear whether they would be aware of increased complacency among consumers as a result of their work.

As activists and potential activists notice MFA’s progress, their grassroots network (and the animal advocacy community in general) grows and can push for better animal welfare policies in the future. Also, making institutional progress for animals could increase the credibility of the animal advocacy movement, as it becomes clear that animal advocates are not just passionate about changing their personal diets; they are also capable of making significant institutional changes.109

The success of humane reforms also establishes moral discussions of animal agriculture as an important and tractable topic in the public domain, which seems important for further progress. It may even be important for facilitating the transition to vegan alternatives, like cultured meat. Consumers may support alternatives to animal agriculture more enthusiastically if they are aware of a history of other attempts to reform the system.

Some would argue that the development of animal-free foods, as The Good Food Institute (GFI) is doing, will be the key turning point for ending animal farming. What is the best case for giving to MFA over its “child organization,” GFI?

MFA helped to launch a new charity, GFI, to address an underserved area in the animal advocacy movement: the development and promotion of animal-free foods. Many animal advocates believe that GFI’s work is potentially high-impact and relatively neglected, so it may be tempting for donors to support GFI rather than other animal charities.

We encourage our audience to donate to any or all of our top charities. GFI is doing good work in an important area, and the fact that MFA helped them to launch may be an indication of the benefits of donating to MFA. MFA tells us that they hope to launch more effective charities in the future, though GFI took a lot of resources and MFA plans to focus on their own development in the short term.110

“MFA’s 2015 budget is about $1 million more than their 2014 budget…On the other hand, MFA used their budget increase this year in ways that we think make sense. We think there’s a good chance they would also use a similar increase well next year[.]”—2015 ACE Review of Mercy For Animals.

Compare the total budgets used in our estimates of their cost-effectiveness in 2015 and 2016.

For corporate outreach, we estimate a budget of around $1.1 million this year, compared to around $300 thousand in 2015. For education, we estimate a budget of around $2.8 million this year, compared to $1.6 million (for grassroots outreach and online outreach combined) in 2015.

“MFA has already hired 8 staffers in Mexico, Brazil, China, and India at the time of this conversation. They are planning to have 42 staff total in these countries by early 2017. Most of the staff are working on corporate outreach and/or education campaigns.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

When we spoke to Nick in 2015, he mentioned only three MFA employees outside the U.S., all investigators: “They now have a full-time investigator in India, gathering footage for them… In Mexico, MFA has two investigators ready to start working who are Mexican citizens.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2015).

“The four main priorities for the coming year are:

expand internationally

expand the corporate outreach program

achieve victories for broiler chickens

grow financially as much as possible[.]”

—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

“There is also probably room in the movement for reducing fish consumption and implementing fish welfare policies. This will probably become one of MFA’s key focus areas in the United States and Canada, where many cage-free commitments are already in place. MFA has already hired an animal welfare specialist who will work on assessing farmed fish welfare and most likely wild-caught fish welfare as well.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

The Open Philanthropy Project announces grants on their website. Their grants made to MFA cover a two-year period, starting at various times in 2016 depending on the grant.

“MFA’s international expansion can be considered a two-phase process… In the second phase, they want to expand these branches rapidly, to reach their goal of 15 staff members in Mexico, 15 in Brazil, 6 in India, and 6 in China by early 2017.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

“The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is advising MFA on how to implement institutional reduction in other countries. HSUS is the only organization which has been working for institutional reduction at a large scale, although exclusively in the United States. They have had remarkable success, particularly with school districts. While there would be only a small marginal benefit to MFA complementing HSUS in the United States, MFA is optimistic that they can replicate some of HSUS’ accomplishments in other countries. To that end, they are going to hire two employees in Mexico, two in Brazil, and hopefully one in Canada.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

“The effective date of this Final Rule is December 1, 2016. On that day, the new standard salary level ($913 per week or $47,476 per year) and HCE total compensation requirement ($134,004 per year) will take effect.”—Final Rule: Overtime Questions and Answers. United States Department of Labor.

The method we use does calculations using Monte Carlo sampling. This means that results can vary slightly based on the sample drawn. Unless otherwise noted, we have run the calculations five times and rounded to the point needed to provide consistent results. For instance, if sometimes a value appears as 28 and sometimes it appears as 29, our review gives it as 30.

“U.S./Canada Investigations released: 5 YTD / 7 Full Year
MFA’s U.S. and Canada investigations this year have so far been focused on poultry and egg producers. One more investigation has been completed and will be released in October, with at least one more expected by year’s end.

International investigations released: 0 YTD / 3 Full Year
We have completed but not released a number of investigations in Mexico and India; we will be releasing three by year’s end.”—MFA Accomplishments (2016).

2016 MFA cost-effectiveness estimate. Our estimates in this model were calculated using accomplishment information provided by MFA. From our five computations, the ranges were: 310 million to 4.9 billion, 220 million to 5 billion, 170 million to 5 billion, 160 million to 5 billion, and 210 million to 5.1 billion.

“Estimated media impressions: 6,499,979,562 YTD / 9,749,969,343 Full Year
I know that media data is so inflated that you may not be considering it in your evaluations. However I do think that generating widespread media coverage, as MFA does, has a real and important impact for animals including through reducing meat consumption, even though the numbers are obviously inflated by the media reporting services.”—MFA Accomplishments (2016).

2016 MFA cost-effectiveness estimate. Our estimates in this model were calculated using preliminary budget numbers and accomplishment information provided by MFA. From our five computations, the ranges for cost per 1000 views were: -18 to 1.9, 0.34 to 3.5, -24 to 1.8, 0.33 to 3.4, and 0.34 to 3.5. We consider the large negative endpoints undesirable artifacts of the randomness in our computational method, combined with this particular computation.

“Corporate campaigns run solely by MFA improved the living conditions of about 40 million egg-laying hens, while campaigns where MFA was one of two or three organizations pressuring a company helped about 85 million. In addition to their cage-free campaigns, MFA convinced Perdue to implement on-farm welfare improvements and less cruel slaughter practices for the 670 million broiler chickens the company raises and kills each year.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

“Cage-free campaigns have been the main focus in 2016. Corporate campaigns run solely by MFA improved the living conditions of about 40 million egg-laying hens, while campaigns where MFA was one of two or three organizations pressuring a company helped about 85 million.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

One policy commitment MFA was involved in was the one from Perdue described here: “Currently, when birds arrive at a typical poultry processing plant, they’re hung upside down in moving shackles. Their heads then go into a water bath that contains an electrical current, which stuns them and renders them unconscious before they’re slaughtered.

Perdue is now promising to abolish the shackles and knock the birds out with gas instead. ‘It’s a dramatically less cruel way to kill these animals,’ says Balk.

Perdue is also planning to change the poultry houses, adding windows to provide natural light and perches for chickens to sit on. This is supposed to encourage chickens to be more active.

“Number of ag-gag and “right to farm” bills defeated: 2Number of animal cruelty charges filed: 21Number of pro-animal bills helped passed: 0 YTD / 1 Full Year
While HSUS has certainly played the lead and dominant role in the Prop 3 effort to ban veal crates, gestation crates, and battery cages and products sourced from them in Massachusetts, MFA has helped the effort through sending paid and volunteer canvassers to collect signatures, producing videos for the campaign, conducting investigations related to Massachusetts egg sales, and other activities. The bill has yet to pass, but we are optimistic that it will.”—MFA Accomplishments (2016).

“This will result in about 10 undercover investigations in the US and Canada, as well as gathering footage for international investigations to be released in 2016. Footage of these investigations will receive a projected 1,400,000 views online (excluding Facebook) and about 41,000,000,000 views through media (e.g. news) coverage.”—2015 ACE Review of Mercy For Animals.

“For the efficiency of undercover investigations…[w]e do not assign a quantitative estimate to the impact of media views, even though we expect they are a significant portion of the impact of undercover investigations.”—2015 ACE Review of Mercy For Animals.

“Estimated media impressions: 6,499,979,562 YTD / 9,749,969,343 Full Year
I know that media data is so inflated that you may not be considering it in your evaluations. However I do think that generating widespread media coverage, as MFA does, has a real and important impact for animals including through reducing meat consumption, even though the numbers are obviously inflated by the media reporting services.”—MFA Accomplishments (2016).

This was communicated to us in a private email correspondence with Nick Cooney on November 5, 2016.

We estimate a budget of around $1.1 million this year, compared to around $300 thousand in 2015.

We estimate policies MFA influenced this year will affect 200 million to 800 million animals yearly, while last year’s policies will affect around 40 million animals yearly. Additionally, we think this year’s policies are likely to make a larger difference for the average animal affected.

The view that advocates will need to move to new policy areas seems to be shared by MFA, for instance: “There is also probably room in the movement for reducing fish consumption and implementing fish welfare policies. This will probably become one of MFA’s key focus areas in the United States and Canada, where many cage-free commitments are already in place.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

In fact, there are already sources of error and imprecision in our estimates to this point, most notably in uncertainties about how much time MFA employees spend on each activity we have described and about how administrative and fundraising costs should be assigned to the various areas. However, the amount of error in our following estimates can be expected to be considerably greater.

We use similar assumptions for each of the groups for which we perform such a calculation. Other estimates of the cost-effectiveness of charities may use different assumptions and may therefore not be comparable to ours.

The Impact Calculator synthesizes information about the effects of leafleting and of online ads leading to videos about factory farming from a variety of sources, including surveys, studies on vegetarians and former vegetarians, U.S. animal product consumption averages, and elasticity estimates for various foods. The spreadsheet version of the calculator contains links to all sources used.

2016 MFA cost-effectiveness estimate. Our estimates in this model were calculated using preliminary budget numbers and accomplishment information provided by MFA. From our five computations, the ranges were: -0.33 to 150, 0.3 to 150, -0.73 to 190, -0.71 to 130, and -0.69 to 110.

2016 MFA cost-effectiveness estimate. Our estimates in this model were calculated using preliminary budget numbers and accomplishment information provided by MFA, including Facebook reports. See also our MFA social media calculator.

Sometimes our estimated cost-effectiveness ranges include negative numbers if we are not certain that an intervention has a positive effect, and it could have a negative effect, even if we think that isn’t likely. This doesn’t mean we think those interventions are equally likely to harm animals as to help them, unless the range is equally large on either side of zero.

2016 MFA cost-effectiveness estimate. Our estimates in this model were calculated using preliminary budget numbers and accomplishment information provided by MFA. From our five computations, the ranges were: -120 to 460, -97 to 480, and -110 to 560, and -120 to 440, and -120 to 480.

Sometimes our estimated cost-effectiveness ranges include negative numbers if we are not certain that an intervention has a positive effect, and it could have a negative effect, even if we think that isn’t likely. This doesn’t mean we think those interventions are equally likely to harm animals as to help them, unless the range is equally large on either side of zero.

2016 MFA cost-effectiveness estimate. Our estimates in this model were calculated using preliminary budget numbers and accomplishment information provided by MFA. From our five computations, the ranges were: -14 to 84, -15 to 80, -14 to 83, -15 to 84, and -16 to 76.

2016 MFA cost-effectiveness estimate. Our estimates in this model were calculated using preliminary budget numbers and accomplishment information provided by MFA. From our five computations, the ranges were: -3.6 to 22, -4.4 to 23, -3.3 to 23, -3.8 to 24, and-3.2 to 21.

Sometimes our estimated cost-effectiveness ranges include negative numbers if we are not certain that an intervention has a positive effect, and it could have a negative effect, even if we think that isn’t likely. This doesn’t mean we think those interventions are equally likely to harm animals as to help them, unless the range is equally large on either side of zero.

Tactics MFA has used to promote the footage from their investigations include “creating websites to share footage,” “communicating with media outlets, securing coverage, conducting interviews, carrying out press conferences,” and “pressing for criminal charges against farm workers after investigations in order to garner ongoing media attention to footage.”—MFA Time Allocations and Accomplishments (2015).

For instance, “Three factory farm employees were convicted of criminal cruelty to animals this year as a result of MFA’s 2011 undercover investigation of a Butterball turkey facility in Hoke County, North Carolina.”—MFA 2013 Year in Review.

It is difficult for us to verify this figure, especially because it’s not clear what may qualify as a “media story.” When we searched in Google News for “‘Mercy For Animals’ investigation” on 10/30/16 for the first eight months of 2016, we found 336 results. With just “‘Mercy For Animals'” we found 860. These searches may not include some local newspapers or other outlets, but it might include some websites we would not consider media outlets, like those that simply copy and paste news from mainstream websites. Some investigations receive syndicated coverage in several local outlets. For example, we found 15 outlets with the headline “Chilliwack Cattle Sales expected to plead guilty in animal cruelty case,” referencing a case sparked by an MFA investigation.

MFA reports that their investigations have achieved approximately 6.5 billion media impressions in the first eight months of 2016, though they acknowledge that the number is “obviously inflated” by media reporting services.

MFA estimates that, in the first eight months of 2016, their corporate cage-free campaigns alone have influenced the lives of approximately 90 million hens (communicated to us in a private email correspondence with Nick Cooney on November 5, 2016).

Animal welfare improvements on factory farms may, if publicized, promote a norm of caring for the welfare of animals, because people see that mainstream companies are concerned about the treatment of farmed animals. On the other hand, people who object to industrial agriculture only because of the worst abuses might become more supportive of it if the worst abuses cease, leading fewer people to be actively engaged in promoting animal welfare.

There have been at least two Mechanical Turk experiments investigating the short-term impact of viewing information about recent welfare reforms on attitudes towards animal consumption. Both studies (one by MFA and another by Jacy Reese, who was a board member at ACE at the time of the study) showed statistically significant positive effects of viewing the welfare reform information.

“[F]or years the main MFA model was very local; they had paid staff organizers in respective areas. While that may work well for certain organizations, it wasn’t the case for MFA. They decided to shut down those local offices, stop paying people to do direct tabling/leafleting/etc (though they still have volunteers doing those things), and in late 2012 switched to more of an online focus.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (March 20, 2014).

We do not have the evidence they used to determine that online outreach is more effective than grassroots outreach, but the claim was supported by our own back-of-the-envelope calculations, available in our 2015 ACE Review of MFA.

“[T]hey significantly cut back the amount of money spent on cruelty-focused online ads, following the results of their randomized controlled trial. […] Instead, they increased their spending on the production of viral videos, not only of cruelty but also of other types of content that might lead to more compassion with farm animals.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

“[T]hey significantly cut back the amount of money spent on cruelty-focused online ads, following the results of their randomized controlled trial. […] Instead, they increased their spending on the production of viral videos, not only of cruelty but also of other types of content that might lead to more compassion with farm animals.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

“MFA plans to stop printing physical copies of their Vegetarian Starter Guide or find a way to cover the printing costs through advertising.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

“This year, they also stopped a large-scale negative campaign against Tyson Foods and Gordon Food Service […] They still want to convince the two companies of welfare policy changes, but will try to do so with different types of campaigns.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

“The creation of GFI shows that there are “white spaces” the movement could fill. […] For GFI, MFA provided funding, administrative support, and other assistance (e.g. designing the organization’s strategy) for approximately a year.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

“While there would be only a small marginal benefit to MFA complementing HSUS in the United States, MFA is optimistic that they can replicate some of HSUS’ accomplishments in other countries.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

MFA reports that their investigations generated 3,067 media stories in the first eight months of 2016.

MFA reports in a 2010 blog post that, one day after airing a veal farm investigation, Costco Wholesale banned the sale of veal from farms that use the “crate-and-chain” production method. In our March 2014 conversation with Nick Cooney, he pointed out that, among other things, MFA’s investigations have caused Tyson to ban “thumping” piglets (slamming them headfirst into the ground to kill them) and to encourage (but not mandate) their suppliers not to castrate or tail dock without painkillers or use gestation crates. In our September 2014 conversation with Nick Cooney, he pointed out that Nestlé made a number of changes as a result of MFA’s investigation of a Wisconsin dairy farm.

In a 2010 blog post, MFA reports that their 2009 Maine investigation led the owner of Quality Egg of New England to be charged with cruelty to animals. He pled guilty on 10 counts.
Quality Egg was required to pay over $130,000 in fines and restitution and submit to unannounced inspections conducted by the state of Maine for the next five years. In MFA’s 2013 Year in Review, they report that their 2011 investigation of Butterball turkey facility led to the convictions of three factory farm employees.

They report this number in their 2016 MFA Accomplishments document. They project that when the full year is up, they will have achieved 87 corporate policy victories.

“In addition to their cage-free campaigns, MFA convinced Perdue to implement on-farm welfare improvements and less cruel slaughter practices for the 670 million broiler chickens the company raises and kills each year.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

For instance, about four weeks before California’s Proposition 2 was passed, MFA released “footage… intended to boost support for Proposition 2” shot on a California egg farm.—Blume, H. (October 14, 2008). Group Alleges Cruelty to Hens. Los Angeles Times.
An MFA video also directly inspired the introduction of an unsuccessful bill to ban tail docking in New York State.—The MFA Blog (February 3, 2010).
Legislation banning cruel treatment of farmed animals is unusual in the U.S., and with any legislation and especially a referendum like Proposition 2, it is hard to attribute causality to any particular action. Therefore a record of some involvement with a successful campaign and a clear relationship of causality in inspiring even unsuccessful legislation is fairly strong in context. There are other pieces of legislation that MFA investigations may have played some role in inspiring, though without as much evidence, including the UEP/HSUS bill to ban battery cages at a federal level (never passed) and Rhode Island’s ban on gestation crates (passed in 2013).

For example, MFA’s work has “[…] caused significant policy changes, such as Tyson (the second largest pork producer in the U.S.) ending the practice of “thumping” piglets […] and pushing (not mandating) their suppliers to not castrate or tail dock without painkillers, or use gestation crates.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (March 20, 2014).

Efforts to establish impact of interventions are often hampered by the difficulties of measuring behavior change in general and the lack of academic research on behavior change related to vegetarian advocacy in particular. While it is sometimes difficult to establish exactly why changes in law or corporate policy have occurred, the changes themselves are easy to document, and MFA has been involved in an impressive number of such changes.

For instance, our own study on leafleting showed some effects, as did a study carried out by The Humane League and Farm Sanctuary. The Humane League and FARM have each found some effects of showing videos. However, we emphasize that this evidence is far from conclusive (for example, many of these studies effectively lacked control groups) and in fact there is some similarly weak evidence in the other direction. For instance, there was a study from The Humane League that was designed to compare the effectiveness of various leaflets; they found that, of the nine groups compared in their study, the group which received no leaflet experienced the most dietary change. MFA recently conducted a study of online ads and found that participants in the treatment group reported consuming 3% more servings of animal products than those in the control group. This difference between groups lacked statistical significance.

This estimate was communicated to us in a private email correspondence with Nick Cooney on November 5, 2016.

These include both campaigns where MFA likely played a substantial role by performing undercover investigations, as in the case of Tyson Foods, and campaigns where MFA’s level of importance is not clear to us, as with the defeat of ag-gag bills. For MFA’s involvement with Tyson Foods, see our Conversation with Nick Cooney (March 20, 2014). For HSUS’ involvement, see this HSUS press release.MFA’s 2013 Year in Review states about ag-gag bills that “Every single one of those [ag-gag] bills was rejected, due in large part to the efforts of a large coalition of food safety, environmental, civil liberties, and animal protection groups, including MFA.”

“Many of the directors have held their positions for many years, but since they have restructured and created some new positions, they have new people. They have eliminated some positions in the past few years which has led to some turnover[.]”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (March 20, 2014).

That leaders have stayed with the organization suggests that it has retained institutional knowledge through the transition, and also that the transition was not due to a crisis which prevented key staff from having confidence that they could continue to work together productively.

MFA is excited about their investigations in international markets, and there seem to be fewer concerns with regard to over-saturation of the media than in the U.S. “These investigations are especially exciting because there haven’t been many investigations in these countries. This means they are more likely to grab substantial media attention, spark public outrage, and prompt corporate and policy changes.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2015).

Private communication with MFA.

“There aren’t uniform training procedures in place for new staff and volunteers; it varies based on department. MFA does have an employee handbook, but it doesn’t contain specific guidelines for each program they run. Instead, those specific instructions are carried out by the leader of each department.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (March 20, 2014).

“They share their investigations, photos and videos, to anyone who wants to use them. This includes letting other organizations use their work in booklets….They have worked to connect volunteers around the country with groups like The Humane League, Compassionate Action for Animals, and Vegan Outreach.”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (March 20, 2014).

In our interviews with animal advocates, we’ve heard from representatives of several groups that Mercy For Animals works cooperatively with them. Because of the sensitive nature of corporate and legal advocacy in particular, we are not able to disclose a complete list of such groups.

“Most abolitionists did not see the free produce movement as being vital to the cause. A few dedicated proponents were able to stay completely away from slave goods but a number of other abolitionists endorsed the concept only when convenient. Many more ignored the issue altogether. The movement never grew large enough to gain the benefit of the economies of scale, and the cost of ‘free produce’ was always higher than competing goods. Though William Lloyd Garrison in Boston, founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, initially proclaimed at a convention in 1840 that his wool suit was made without slave labor, he later examined the results of the movement and criticized it as an ineffective method to fight slavery, and as a distraction from more important work.”—Wikipedia entry on the free produce movement, a relatively well-studied historical example of a movement focused on individual changes in consumption.

A Gallup poll conducted in the U.S. in 2015 found that 32% of respondents supported animals having the same rights as people, while an additional 62% said they should have some protection. But the best estimates for the percentage of Americans who are vegetarian are much lower, around 2%.

We ourselves have expressed this concern, such as in our report on corporate outreach, even though we believe overall that humane reform has a net benefit on the likelihood of further improvements for animals.

“Animal advocates give awards to slaughterhouse designers and publicly praise supermarket chains that sell supposed “humanely” raised and slaughtered corpses and other “happy” animal products. This approach does not lead people incrementally in the right direction. Rather, it gives them a reason to justify going backwards. It focuses on animal treatment rather than animal use and deludes people into thinking that welfare regulations are actually resulting in significant protection for animals.”–Francione, G. (February 7, 2007). “Happy” Meat/Animal Products: A Step in the Right Direction or “An Easier Access Point Back” to Eating Animals? Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach.

Although most advocates agree that it is less bad for an animal to be raised for food with less suffering, some believe that the act of farming animals is intrinsically harmful and even if we reduced or eliminated suffering in animal agriculture, it would still be very bad. Gary Francione has made claims that seem to suggest this view, such as: “They are angry that I am what they call an “absolutist” who maintains that we cannot justify *any* animal use. They are right. I am an absolutist in this regard—just as I am an “absolutist” with respect to rape, child molestation, and other violations of fundamental human rights. Indeed, I would not have it any other way. Absolutism is the only morally acceptable response to the violation of fundamental rights whether of humans or nonhumans.”—Francione, G. (November 4, 2015). A Lot of People Are Angry with Me—And They Are Right. The Abolitionist Approach.

“For example, thanks to Josh Balk’s [of Hampton Creek Foods] relationship with Compass Group, Compass Group have switched to Just Mayo for all their mayonnaise, which has removed an unbelievable number of eggs from the supply chain. Similarly, THL is campaigning for Shake Shack to sell veggie burgers at the moment. This kind of work would be very valuable: directly, for the animals involved, and indirectly, for the news coverage produced.”—Conversation with David Coman-Hidy (October 1, 2015).

“MFA plans to start new entities, both nonprofit and for-profit, in the future […],” but “MFA has no concrete short-term plans to launch new spin-off entities like GFI […]”—Conversation with Nick Cooney (September 2, 2016).

The following materials are supplementary research documents associated with our charity review process and are referenced in the Comprehensive Review.